#AskWSJD: Why Would I Want to Unlock My Phone?

In this week’s #AskWSJD, reader Johnathon Mohr asks what it means to unlock a mobile phone—and why it might benefit someone.

In the U.S., many phones are “locked” to a specific carrier, meaning you can’t just pop in another SIM card and get service. Unlocking the phone is a software process that allows it to work on other compatible carriers. Say you bought your phone through AT&T and wanted to get it working on T-Mobile—“unlocking” it would let you do that.

It can be extremely helpful when traveling overseas. If your phone is unlocked and it has the right requirements, you can take it to another country, pop in a new prepaid SIM card and get local service there. That can be much cheaper than paying carrier’s high international rates.

But there has been a lot of controversy over unlocking in the past year. After the Library of Congress, a government department that oversees digital copyright matters, deemed phone unlocking illegal last year, consumers with the help of the White House fought back. In February, the House repealed the mandate. The matter now sits with the Senate.

Consumers can typically bring their phone to a carrier to have them unlocked once their contract is up. In fact, the major U.S. carriers, thanks to the FCC’s help, will soon surface information about unlocking. However, attempting to unlock a phone yourself is still not legal at this point, and can be technically tricky, too.

If you’d like to ask us a question, you can send questions directly in email to the Personal Tech team at personaltech@wsj.com, or send a tweet with the question and the hashtag #AskWSJD. You can also film yourself asking the question in 15 seconds or less, and upload it via YouTube, Instagram, Vine, Facebook or some other online video platform. We look forward to hearing from you, and helping you out!